Yeah I don’t understand the stance changes on fence stacking. The only reason stacking became so popular is because of FC’s siege economy and the ease of offlining. Before fence foundation layer stacking we would fill in square fence foundation frames with pillars for space/hp efficiency.
If anything, server transfer and build rule enforcement has revealed more so the weaknesses of sieging/defense in CE, IMO. Unless this new chaos and the apathy it encourages is the PVP they are aiming for.
I preferred honeycomb triangle wedges. And that to me would drain server resources way more. I mean I once had 7 layers of honeycomb around a base that was about 6x6 inside. And no doors. 8 T3/named bearers and a map room to transfer mats from a non raid hour storage/farm base.
And I don’t understand how it’s an fenc staking is an exploit…it’s the use of geometry…not the game mechanics…unless you view the selection of an equalateral triangle as a building piece a game mechanic…I don’t but hey apparently Funcom does. How dare you exploit geometry to your own gain.
Now the 100 doors thick crap…yeah that’s no different than spamming foundations, IMHO. 5-10 is what I did. Anymore is more chore than game and if I’m not having fun while building, it’s not worth putting it up. Sorry but my imaginary stuff that you want isn’t worth that much of my real time to defend. I self regulate that way which is why the whole temper tantrum over foundation spamming has gotten me ticked. If we would all self regulate and play the game in an enjoyable way for all (including taking and wipe of your base for the fun of all playing if you are playing the big bad establishment on the server…it’s actually good gaming to let the underdogs win a well deserved fight especially when they are join forces to defeat the ‘evil one’)…that is the ideal.
I agree that there’s a non-obvious aspect to the rules, and that’s the one that talks about builds that degrade the server and client performance.
Is there a good argument against Funcom being more specific about it in their rules? Depends on what you expect to get from that.
If Funcom gave some examples of what not to do, it will help some players avoid bans, true. That’s as far as that goes. What it won’t do is stem the tide of players coming to complain about unfair bans, regardless of whether the ban was justified or not. On the contrary, it will incentivize rules-lawyering and logic-pretzeling that you can already see on the forums.
Much more importantly, it would not stop players from getting banned for something they couldn’t guess from the rules or those examples, because they’re just examples. This is my main argument “against” examples, except that I’m not really against Funcom doing that. I’m just pointing out that it won’t really solve the problem, because the problem is that the players don’t have the tools to measure their impact on performance.
Should Funcom give us those tools? Sure, if they can. Even better, if there is a way to implement those tools, there’s also a way to implement a cap based on that, rather than some half-assed numerical limit.
But until they do that, we’re left with trying to follow the spirit of the rules rather than their letter. And the majority of the cases discussed so far seem to have involved either foundation spam or fence foundation stacking. We don’t know how many people are getting banned for just making “normal PVE builds” – or whatever you want to call that non-obvious grey area of the rules, since there’s no name for it that won’t ruffle someone’s feathers. And we’re not likely to know that until people stop spamming and stacking, or until people start documenting their builds preemptively, so they can come here and show everyone and we can all go “WTF was that ban for” together. 
They are indeed examples of building in the game. But nowhere does it say whether these buildings are bannable offenses or not. And nowhere does it say why they are or are not - and it is the why that would be (IMO) the most useful part of what I was suggesting. I’ve seen a fair few buildings in Funcom trailers (great inspiration) that would almost certainly fall into the category of ‘too big’ (and who knows how many resources some of these were blocking since they were not built for ‘real’ game play). Maybe I’m wrong, maybe every building in a trailer is ‘legal’ - in which case it wouldn’t quite achieve what I was aiming for anyway - but, if not, you can see where there could be some confusion to be had.
Yeah, that’s my worry with the suggestion (not necessarily actual litigation but ‘rules-lawyering’ - which may even be worse 
). It’s the best suggestion I can come up with to resolve something that seems to be a problem in the community - but there is no question it still has problems of its own. (As you say, community cooperation would be better, but the likelihood of that seems extremely slim…)
I have no point to make here - just loved the phrasing 
Agreed. In fact, the best argument I have against specificity is that I see the ‘grey areas’ as important for allowing the system the flexibility it needs to be just. IMO a human judge has a far better chance of judging intent, and trying to take that into account, than any system that fully categorises things. (I recognise you’re not actually calling for that, just trying to address the specificity point). Of course, these grey areas then lead to player uncertainty, which is the problem - and is why I would like a way for Funcom to provide more guidance on how they judge these grey areas. But, as Ulyssi points out, that has it’s own problems as well. We’ve all seen claims that the ‘new rules’ mean blocking a single stick or stone is bannable - and those same powers of misunderstanding would inevitably be brought to bear on any guidelines offered. I’m rapidly approaching the opinion that there is no solution…
And, to be fair, some have. I can think of examples of people reporting bans and asking for more clear rules that have been treated reasonably - this was because, while their frustration may have been evident, they didn’t try to claim things that aren’t true, or pre-emptively dismiss all potential disagreement as ‘white-knighting for Funcom’ (as if that is the only reason people might have for disagreeing with: ‘you can be banned for blocking a stick’, ‘Funcom bans people randomly’, ‘Funcom bans just based on malicious reports and doesn’t look at the evidence’ or any number of similar claims.
I’m not denying there have been some responses I’ve seen where I feel people have over-reacted the other way - but after seeing the same things a hundred times, such over-reactions can also be understandable (same as why I understood Multigun slapping back at me when I was complaining about bugs - we had an amicable conversation once I stopped venting and clarified a bit - he’s seen it too many times for it not to draw a reaction when he sees what appears to be the same thing yet again). And we have already seen a lot of BS about this stuff. I’d much rather hear from the people that are capable of having a conversation about it, rather than just wanting to ‘show the world’ that ‘funcom is bad’.
Anyway, I’m drifting into seeming like I’m disagreeing with the point you were making - which I really wasn’t intending - just trying to suggest I can understand there’s a fair bit of frustration on all sides. If everyone could remember that, and apply a ‘principle of charity’ to the things we read, it might allow for more productive conversation. But this is the internet. (and now I’m starting to get depressed about the state of humanity…)
And now CodeMage has done a better job of summing up what I see as the important part of the debate - so I think I’ll leave this ramble here, in the hope there’s something of relevance to someone…
My guess is that FC’s stance on it is actually similar to ours. In moderation stacking/honeycomb is a clever build tactic that helps to balance siege economy and ability to offline. However, unfettered use of this tactic is essentially concentrated spam and takes a toll on server performance.
Since they cannot reasonably address all instances of this building practice on a case by case basis, they deem it as an exploit. That might explain why early on it was viewed as “emergent gameplay” only to later be dubbed an exploit. That’s just a theory…
While I’m glad to finally see the rules enforced, there is no denying that the culture of player behavior developed (in a significant but not sole way) in response to deficiencies created by FC’s systems. My hope is that they plan to remedy these deficiencies as well as enforce the rules, not just the latter.
Not now, always, the only thing that changed was enforcement. This has been explained dozens of times by now. What was not enforced BEFORE was NOT ok before.
The speed limits have always been there. We all knew the rules but a select few of you found the Officials being this paradise of lawlessness. And don’t even tell me you all didn’t play there because of that. You all literally argued three years ago that was the reason for playing there.
No enforcement, build however you want, without any consequence. No matter what it did to the fellow player. These exploits you all call tactics have always been forbidden on private servers. Foundation spam, fencing stacking, wall stacking, gate stacking, and various other forms have been banned on private servers since their inception.
All Funcom did was follow suit, why? Because they never allowed it either. They finally did what some of your fellow Official players asked for. They hired some peeps to clean up the servers of trolls, exploiters, and griefers.
Those three categories are what are being banned. Not innocents. Not normal players. Trolls, Exploiters, and Griefers. If you’ve been banned and/or demo’d, then you fell into one of those categories.
Its time to man up, take personal responsibility for your actions and stop feigning ignorance. This is getting really pathetic at this point.
This notion that you all are claiming to be too dense to understand the rules as they are written is ridiculous. You all are smarter than that. No one is buying this ‘I’m too dumb’ argument. Just stop.
Yep…this is why we can’t have nice things. I still need to do some repair work to bring my building “up to code” now.
Do I agree with that? No.
I’m not sure it’s within the prevue of a game company to cater to those without common sense. Has the west really fallen THAT far? I thought it was just a few exceptionally low IQ people on Twitter and Tick-tock? I wonder what’s next, car companies will be required to explain in great detail how it’s not OK to run over people before they can sell you a car? Or maybe we are that far down the drain - I remember not too long ago the EU refused to accept Mac Pro tower machines because the internal fans didn’t have guards on them and they feared people would stick their fingers in them and get an owie! My gawd, we’re doomed!
Here’s one. They already have been specific. As specific as needed for anyone with ANY degree of common sense. I mean, I barely have any common sense (proof: I just spent $100 on green shoes with bright orange laces - insane!) and it’s ENTIRELY obvious to me - so certainly everyone else can understand it too.
Yup! As mentioned likely about 0.5% of players are actually this numb-skulled.
Yup, and it won’t stop people from obstinately rule-breaking either.
And of course if people don’t look at the rules now what makes anyone think they will take the time to look at and understand the examples either. It’ll just be the same thing. Rule breakers will claim the examples are not specific enough.
Same here, yeah… If they do, great… But it’s wasted time and effort IMO. Please work on the ver. 3.0 release instead! 
Why would they show bannable examples of content on YouTube? That doesn’t make sense. Oh well… Of course those are put up for setting our expectations. That’s what trailers and intros are all about afterall.
Also, I could be wrong but I honestly do not believe anyone is getting banned for building out of “code” - unless they just keep doing it in obstinate defiance over and over.
Hey while on topic of stacking I wanted to pick your brain and historic reference…is ceiling staking the same offense as fence stacking? The point here is that I build tree houses and gotten a way to have the elevator doored through a measure of ceiling staking techniques and wierdness in the treehouse foundation footprint (although I believe it’s still possible without the treehouse foundation but I just love that piece; very easy to establish hidden bases in trees with very limited resourcing).
Yes. Any “trick” to get building pieces to occupy space that was not intended with basic clicking techniques is now being a dick. Sorry, but even though you were doing it for non dick reasons, you now are as bad as an undermesher. 
ok so another home repair then to get to code.
So then why dont you just build a 5x5 box with one door on it then? If you said you used 5-10 doors and called that good enough, there will always be someone who will still raid that. 5-10 doors is nothing to raid. 100 is alot more.
If your not concerned about defending imaginary things, thats fine, thats your call. Then build small and easy to raid. But you dont, because you dont want to start in the stone age every single day, you want some progress saved so you can PVP and raid at your choosing.
So, some people want those bases with 100 doors (walls, or whatever) so they can have things ready to raid at any point, knowing their stuff is alot safer, and knowing they wont be in the stone age every day.
To be safe yes:/
You seem to be missing the point of what I was calling for. I suggested that, since there is disagreement over exactly what constitutes ‘too big’, it might be useful to have some examples of buildings that come close to that grey area - along with some explanations of why one might be bannable but a similar build might not be. This would then allow people whose buildings are big to have greater confidence as to whether or not their building is ‘too big’. A series of videos showing some of the nice things that can be built in the game doesn’t solve this question. (I think, with the length of this conversation, you maybe forgot what exactly you were responding to when you suggested those videos - that’s why I point out that it’s lacking information on whether these buildings might be bannable or not.) Some of the buildings Funcom puts in trailers are extremely big - if I was judging them, without knowledge of exactly where the line is, I would potentially call some of them ‘too big’. If I am correct in that (and it is an ‘if’), then that would make them bad examples, as they would lead players to reasonably expect it to be ok to build at that size - so if any of them are ‘too big’, then it would be useful for Funcom to indicate that. And the fact that neither you nor I can say for 100% certain that every build featured in a trailer is not ‘too big’ strongly suggests that, while there may be ‘obvious’ cases at the extremes, as you get closer to the ‘line’ certainty is reduced. I don’t believe there can (or should be) 100% certainty (because that removes room for judgement calls to be made), but greater clarity would help protect the genuinely ‘innocent offenders’ (whether that is 0.5%, 0.00001% or 50%). It would also provide more things to be pointed to when the inevitable complainers come to say Funcom didn’t warn them.
And thats fine up until it starts limited the fun of the other players. If you don’t take them into consideration, then what precisely is the point of the game? Yes of course many folks want 100 doors for added security…but at the cost of server strain?..yeah sorry but they need to find alternative avenues to secure their base that isn’t making the game unbearable for other players. It all comes back to the community as a whole. If you aren’t taking that in consideration, then you aren’t playing a group game…you are playing a solo game that happens to have NPC’s played by people. Perhaps that is the distinction right there. The difference between group games vs solo play…Should Conan be viewed as a solo game or as a group game? If it is a group game, then you accept there is a factor of fun for all playing aspect. If it’s a solo game, then it’s no holds barred and take them all down. Funcom’s position is clear (as far as I have seen) that it’s a group game.
Build. Survive. Dominate.
How else do you do that on a PVP server? Yes, there are other players. Do you want to win, to survive and dominate? You do what you can to win, and if that means building a big base with 100 doors so you remain secured every night, you do it. If it means having players play 12 hours a day, you do it. Honestly, if others cant or wont put in the effort to win, thats on them…and dont get me wrong, Im not saying you should do that, but if you want to win, you do everything you can to win.
But here is the kicker…it’s a continuous game. there is no winner or loser. There is advantage and setback but its not a win vs loss scenario ever. So if there isn’t a win or a loss, all you have is how you play. Build, Survive, Dominate,note NOT win because you simply can’t. You will eventually fail and fall. If you play to win all the time…yeah that’s just not a fun time for anyone…the other players who just view the “winner” as a toxic jerk and the player that stops having fun and starts looking at it as a job and that brings in resentment and hostility towards those that aren’t sufficient in the eyes of the winning player. I was there…I just had to reprioritize and realize what the true intent of it is…not about winning but enjoyment. 12 hours a day to grind and defend and to attack…that sounds way too much like work and I might as well just go and get paid to do that.
No I was following you bro. I just think those are indeed such examples. It’s totally what I would do if I were (again in my career path) making videos for games or apps. I for SURE would not be putting up things that would get folks banned and if I did and that happened I would remove them immediately until they could be remade more appropriately.
I’ve seen all their videos I think - I haven’t seen anything too big unless they were highlighting user content and then they warn as they present it verbally. Like " Wow, this beautiful but that’s meant for a private server…" etc. Of their officially presented in-house content, none of them are “too big” compared to what I’m used to seeing in the few servers I’ve been on. Modest to average I would say.
Yeeeeeah, K, My take is that by presenting it in the first place they already are.
I get where you might be coming from but I just think it’s so much navel-gazing. It’s fine, it’s all fine!
P1: Go build yourself a desk to use in this office.
P2: How big?
P1: As large or as small as you like - within reason.
P2 returns with a desk 4 city-blocks long…
P1: WTF? You’re fired.
P2: But but but… you said…
P1: GTFO! Can’t understand “reasonable” you can’t work here! Wanna try again?
I dunno, so far I’m tending to believe there are no “genuinely ‘innocent’…”. Based on the experiences I’ve had and heard about all that happens if you build too big (without malice) is your structure get wiped and so far I haven’t even seen or heard an example of that. So far the only examples I’ve seen where people get wiped structures is where they build in order to control other players in some way or they build so close to some server content (dungeons or vaults etc) and muck up other people’s experience - and the wipe is then deserved. Can you imagine a FC server mod or admin looking at a building (getting a notification or not) and going: “I think that’s about 10 foundations too big” and hitting the destroy key? Probably never happened - ever! I could always be wrong of course.
And then of course those abusers come here and complain after getting wiped and everyone else starts walking on eggshells about size (because that’s what the abuser falsely claimed), and getting all paranoid and stuff. It doesn’t seem to hold true. It seems to be such a common thing in the West these days - to live and be controlled by fear - unjustifiably.
I do believe that they review the foundation size of that clan as a measure as well. No exact number but if the reportee has only 5000 building size in their clan and the report is in an area that doesn’t have important items in it (like obs, dungeons or game quest items), there is probably a misreport going on.
